63. OUR DAD WAS OUR ONLY DOCTOR UNTIL HE LIVED.

To give treatment to my ailing mom, my dad took a month’s leave from his career and he started pouring over the Arabic version of Mateira Medica known in Arabic as Tibb e Qass and the Persian biaz ul amraz. He had his certified training and license from the Hamdard College and dawakhana. Now it is a university running medical and tech courses. He tried some qurs or tablets, which he himself prepared out of the ingredients known with peculiar Arabic or Persian names. Diet restriction was a strict ordeal. We all had observed and the effect was wonderful. Indeed. Maybe those drugs had steroids in them, who knows?

My mom started responding very positively to our utmost joy. Before every dispensation my dad would make, he would have religious rituals of ablution, and he would resort to divine invocation.  He would say dawa wa dua only would make the ultimate cure.

 Fortunately, for us all, before long my mom had completely recovered long before my dad’s leave had expired. It was not only a great reprieve for us but also a joyfulness of high order.

In addition, it was a triumph especially to my dad. Dad’s mental anguish and our sorrow were unspeakably great .When he took to a project, come what may; he had his faith in Allah and he focused onto the project until he accomplished it with a bash. That was my dad. We never saw a doctor for any of our bad health in our family until our dad lived with us. That was great, and that made all of us proud of him.

I remember and it might be so, that a patient was brought from Udumalpet with sexually transmitted disease. Might be he had syphilis or gonorrhea. Who knows it could have been Chlamydia or genital herpes. May be it was Lympho granuloma proctitis. H.I.V was unknown at that time. My father had his ‘tashqees that is diagnosing symptoms for his supposed disease.  He would put a list of probable diseases and filter it by elimination after precise investigation.

After a week, my dad commenced his treatment. Scarcely do I remember him to have used betel leaves, lizard’s tails which I had caught for the purpose and several other Delhi based ingredients that went in to the preparations of the final qurs.   I felt horrible to have seen him used the lizard tail as an ingredient for the medicine, but later on, I was convinced that the Far East had been using snakes, scorpions, horrible looking insects and marine reptiles as ingredients for various medicines.

 My dad had administered the patient with the qurs and safoof and he gave ordeals of the food items that should be restricted during the treatment. The treatment took a forty days strict schedule. The patient returned completely recovered hale and hearty to my dad’s pleasure. My dad was then invited to his place with all of us for a grand celebration as a token of blissful response to his becoming fully cured.

 

62. MY DEAREST MOM NOW BESET WITH DEMENTIA.

We were all overwhelmingly miserable about mom’s pathetic condition. She would be the blissful sort now and the scarifying and impulsively depressed the next moment. We never knew what next she would resort to do and when.  Highly unpredictable was she. Our dad never permitted us out of the house until my mom would recover. Was that the onset of age related dementia? I did not know. She would peculiarly stare at us now and then as though she was seized of some visual hallucinations. She would smile, then laugh like a mare and dissolved in sort of panic and unfathomable sorrow.

As per the code of conduct, we had to abide by, the street and every portal of the other house there was, out of bound for us. We had very little socializing interaction those days. We had never been to any wedding, festive gathering, not even to the funerals on the occasions of the death, and all the sacraments following. WE NEVER KNEW WHAT WAS GOING ON IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD so long as our dad was alive. Actually, we lived not in any “iron curtain” but in an over protected multi-insulated environment. Dad was the world life and the law.

We had never seen a movie until my youngest sister became seven and that was when my father had already died. However, but for the stories of the Pakistani and Delhi Urdu dailies and the religious magazines we knew nothing of the external sphere. Some seventeen solid dry languid years we had spent in this manner before we stepped out in an open-minded alien outside world, after our dear dad left us and this world.

Everything was new to us, the borrowed fashion outside, the mean and malicious language spoken there in the dirty streets, and the messy relationships in the families outside, mere hollow rituals regarding both happy as well as sad events, and quarrels followed after inebriation.  We saw hypocrisy in everything in every person and everywhere. The daily cultural milieu seen by us was unkempt to us and strange.  We found ourselves left in an insecure jungle full of beasts of society.

Those days there was neither computer nor we heard anything about the TV. The transistor did not have its advent yet.

 

61. MY MOM BECAME BEDRIDDEN WITH BIPOLARISM

My dad was also a physician of the Greek system of medicine. He practiced Unani, which he did meticulously and handled treatment very aptly, and so people used to come to him from faraway places for his treatment. Those days horse cart was the transport used by all social classes. When we were unwell, he would forever administer to us with indigenous medicines like the Majoon, safoof, helwaiyath and joshindah. Kharoorah was the first collection of the urine of the patient .He would pour it into a glass bottle shake it several times and would diagnose the disease by observing it very closely, very precisely. Janab Abdur Raheem M.P was a regular visitor and he used to send several patients with unusual diseases. My dad did everything so accurately to their full contented cure.

We honestly, never ever knew anything about the Allopathic medicines and its existence until our dad lived. We all fell ill. We all had his unani medicines administered to us. The taking of unani medicines had its own drastic ordeals. We had to avoid many usual diets and restrictions of food intake were harsh.  Dad would not permit water   when caught with fever; he would ask us to avoid tomato and brinjal when bedridden with dysentery.

Surprisingly for us mom had some strange and peculiar behavior onset. .Sort of manic-depressive disorder or might be the bipolar type. My dad would always desire that we displayed affection and great reverence to mom .He would often say that if we were to enter paradise it was through sincere service to mom that we could. Paradise was underneath the feet of mother he would relate very often. We were all close to mom than to dad and now mom’s sudden change in behavior left us in lurch. We had started praying to Allah very often to give her speedy recovery.

 

 

60....KUN FA YAKUN FA YAKUN

The poor tenant had now only two options left with, one, to part with defaulting amount he owed my dad,two: to court arrest.He had no money to pay from his packet and had no other property to lean on to discharge the loan.So he ran to us and fell on my father’s feet and asked for clemency, while the same man when the case was pending in the court used to speak haughtily that my dad would never get a single penny from him and that my dad was needlessly sweating in vain.

His daughter also visited my mom  and requested us to consider the distressed position they were thrown into and asked us to condone the arrears of rent  they owed us.My father was also very much in need of money then.He had incurred loans in having carried the court case for so long. My mother had also requested my dad for helping them. However my dad magnanimously pardoned him and condoned the rent arrears,considering his poor condition and that of his family though he had spent so much and incurred a lot of loan on his head.Such a generous man was my dad.

Purity in language was his forte. He used the pure rare Urdu words which were hardly ever heard in the local common parlance of the town. Language makes the man, he would accentuate.I was very much proud of the Urdu I had learnt under him with accents and  rhetoric full of Persian and Arabic. Books were our only accumulated property.Arabic Persian and Urdu rare volumes were what he left as his only meritorious belongings when he, he was dead. He was most often solitary.Alone and lonely while living and so while he was gone.

Rarely a friend visited him.If one visited we would see through the peeping hole of the closed window of our house what would transpire between them,as it was a very curious occasion for us, his having a visitor.Persian quartets,couplets and subjects about paranormal phenomena,metaphysics, Sufism and mystic aura were some arguments we had overheard from them. It was all just a bla bla for us.

 

 

59......FANA FILLAH WA BAQA BILLAH

 The Sufis recognize the self or ego as Nafs and divide them as the seven stages. The Commanding Self (nafs al-ammara), The Blaming Self (nafs al-lawwama), The Inspired Self (nafs al mulhimah The Satisfied Self (nafs al mutmainnah), The Consenting Self (nafs al radiyah), The Consent-Given Self (nafs al mardiyyah), The Purified Self (nafs al safiyyah). The phrase of "states of Nafs" denotes the "stages of consciousness or the levels of Self (Nafs, ego).

 When the consciousness takes shape in the beginning, it considers all the carnal desires as if they are its own desires because it recognizes itself as a physical body because of its database. Thus, it leads a life completely focused on the needs and pleasures of the body. This is identified as the Commanding Self. At that level of understanding, the consciousness recognizes itself as a physical body. While still accepting himself as a body, thinking that his life will never come to an end but go on in some way after the body dies, and that he will experience the consequences of his deeds in this world, the Self begins to feel regret because  he realizes his possible wrongdoings while considering his future life after death.  As seen above, the Self at both of these levels, that are the states of consciousness, are connected to and focused on the physical body. The consciousness at that state is not aware of its heaven (Sama) yet. Its world is the earth (ardh), the physical body. All his delights, concerns and struggles are connected with his ardh that is his body. If a person's consciousness realizes that it is not in fact a body but a reflection of the universal oneness or an expression of the qualities possessed by the universal oneness, at the level that its capacity allows, such awareness is called as "the Inspired Self" (nafs al mulhimah) in view of its characterization because such awareness is realized through inspirations (ilham)

This state is described as blaming the Self. At that level of understanding, the consciousness begins getting rid of the idea of accepting himself as a body. He sometimes feels himself as a body and sometimes as something separate from the body. However, what kind of an entity he is at that state of feeling separate from the body is not clear to him yet. In addition, that is not a state that can be experienced through knowing. This stage of understanding for the consciousness is the most difficult stage of life. There, the consciousness faces many contradictions. He may sometimes consider himself as a servant, other times as a God, experiencing the odd results of such sensations. The person, who sees himself as God at that stage, may even find the level of sainthood (walayat) as lowering for himself. He may, thus let loose all his values and fall on a completely corporeal life. For people of true faith (muhaqqikun), the act of "reading" begins to be practiced at that level of consciousness. When reading the system, which is called "Sunnat-Allah", is initiated for such a consciousness, then the "why of “what” RasulAllah brought is opens to him at the level of realization known as "certainty through Haqq (haqq ul yakeen)". He becomes khaneef (worship-free of a God) at that station. His is "actual belief" in the one named as "ALLAH" at that level. He is purified from the spiritual power of "heartless discovery, unveiling" (kashf-i zulmani) and possesses the spiritual power of "caring discovery" (kashf-i noorani). He begins to perceive the secrets of the Qur'an that rule until Doomsday. He who experiences that spiritual state is called as "arif" (Aware -Gnostic).

Almost all the persons whose believers (ahl-al taqlid) among common people assume them to be saints (awliya) and even regard them suitable for the spiritual status of Ghawth, Qutb (chief center authorities of spiritual influence) and are at that realm of consciousness. Those persons may sometimes think themselves as real possessors of those spiritual positions (martaba) due to their level of comprehension, whereas theirs is yet no more than a small accumulation of water coming down from the fountain of sainthood (walayat).

 FROM THE "WORLD OF TASAWWUF."

58.... TESTING TIMES WERE SURFACING.

My dad would always infuse in us a sense of moral courage with a pinch of religious upbringing. Values like truth, godliness, and kindness towards the weak and the meek and the downtrodden was our priority in life he would emphasize. Justice even in the face of danger to life was a God loving act he taught us. Purity in thought and will and action was accentuated in all the day today affairs.

He often and always wanted us and expected us to put trust in Allah alone  for everything, and he loved us to patiently seek to live within the god given means;never to be greedy about the worldly possessions and never ever to be jealous about the worldly accumulations particularly of the rich and the arrogant.He had always emphasized the importance of prayers and when anyone of us failed he would be very severe in punishing us for it

We were to merit the wisdom and knowledge greater than everything on this earth,  the pursuit of  them was only the worthwhile affluence we were told of. The life in this world was fleetingly limited and running after it was foolishness he said to us.We must try to be content with what Allah has provided us with, and leading an enduring and law abiding life was what he desired of us always.

Our house was located at the very center of the town,in Mohammedan lane in Nawab Hakeem Road. We had some vacant land in that road which was rented to a timber shop and a non vegetarian hotel. The timber shop was rented to a keralite businessman  while the hotel was run by a local dekkani muslim known as Bhayan Bhai.

His paratta and mutton qurma were very appetizing which had earned a name for him in the town.For all that the hotel incurred financial loss to the extant that he was incapable even to give monthly rent in time. Not one month but several years he did not pay his rent.My dad had asked for the rent quite a lot of times, but he did not oblige.After waiting for nearly for four and half years my dad sued for the rent in the district sessions court.The court gave the verdict that the rent should be paid to my dad with the cost.The rent arrears accumulated were more than seven hundred and sixty rupees and that amount in the year 1950s was great,when a gold sovereign was less than fifty rupees.

 

57...A THING OF BEAUTY IS JOY FOR EVER

“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.”

John Keats speaks of beauty in very high terms. The subject perceives beauty in the object. Therefore, both the perception and conception about beauty are subjective. You cannot bally well perceive and conceive some object of beauty as John Keats had done. A man’s intellectual ken is not the same all the time, it grows; it grows like a plant and a child. It also depends upon the mood he is in, and the situation he is sucked in.

Last night I happened to be in a party, my best friend had thrown for his “beautiful” wife leaving for New York on a project. This party has been there every year since the last four**** years but this was my first of the sort of their party. I thought my friend would be very sorrowful for the separation he would be thrust in and he might collapse in the party throng, break the silence by singing sadly “aaj Jane ki zid na karo “. At the least, seizing the pahloo of his wife, I imagined, he would burst shouting, tears rolling on his sticky cheeks “abhi na jao chodkar dil mera bhara naheen.” However, nothing of that kind happened. There was loud laughter and the party specific hallo ballo of post boozing.

The pretty ones and the “beauties” around me were all in their inebriated conversations in semi-whispers. “I ‘m gonna have a date with him tomorrow at nine after the flight,” said one, in jeans, with a sly wink, grinning like a beautiful mare. “Lo yar thum to lucky ho, what about Christina...la patha” Now a slovenly attired pony, this time. “That lousy poor thing has debunked with Rahall, ya! “Yo!yo! You know ***Hanna getting married? And that too an arranged one.” “Wazzup more the bitchy has two bulls already going steady with, one for bucks and the other for ****”.

It was past eleven, I should be home, and I had not fed my loving Tito, my doggy. I din no why I had often set eyes on the quiet dame sitting pretty with a Mona Lisa smile, settled with a glass of vodka a bit away from me. There was something unique about her. I rose to leave, bidding farewell to my friend’s “beautiful” wife. This Mona Lisa sneaked with a brilliant smile to my table, “Single?” she asked. “And you?” I enquired. “Waiting for my hubby,” she said with an air of grudge and hatred. “How about some fun?” now with a steady sly smile.  “Fun?” I grinned, “But your hubby?”  She shook her head, “he does not do so much, and the sort of things you love, my Munna is handy and smart.” “Munna is around here?” I asked. She laughed. “He is my bulldog.” Wala howla wala quwwata illa billa. Astaghfirullah.

 Suddenly I rose up in an unfathomable shock and remembered some chapters I read in Havelock Ellis’ Psychology of Sex, Book 4.  Unexpectedly I was caught hold of some guy in long kurtha and surwal with musky smack and already drenched in sweat. He settled in front of me introducing himself as Mona Lisa’s hubby, and dragged himself towards me, “You look cute yar, hundred percent. How about some more hotty? Whisky or Champagne?” “Let us have some fun, I am a bit horny, are you active or passive?” he was investigating. Wala howla wala quwwata illa billa. My head already started spinning I changed the subject and asked him about the host. He laughed and stared at me with a grin. “The man is already sleeping with his secretary downstairs and the woman, on bed at home with her new acquaintance.” Shocked to death I did not know what time and how I had reached home and slept.

“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever….full of sweet dreams, and health and quiet breathing...”

Awesomely tired and  disgusted with the things that went on the previous night, I lazily got up and sneaked in the portico asking for some black coffee and started the headlines on Times Of India, chasing  Tito came Rehana, my eight year old child, “Dad where were you all along? We had lots of FUN right now upstairs.”